Associate Scientist, Postdoctoral Fellow – AI in Infectious Disease Modeling

MSD

Postdoctoral Fellow focusing on AI in infectious disease modeling within a pharmaceutical environment. Collaborating with interdisciplinary teams to enhance health economic evaluations.

Posted 6/14/2026full-timeWest Point • Pennsylvania • 🇺🇸 United StatesJuniorMid-Level💰 $75,000 - $86,000 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

Python

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Reporting under a Senior Director within the Vaccines team within HEDS, the fellow is expected to:
Build a robust corpus of health economic infectious disease models using AI-assisted systematic review techniques
Utilize advanced LLMs to precisely extract infectious disease model type, structure (states, transitions), and parameters (costs, utilities, probabilities)
Implement an intelligent AI reasoning layer to evaluate consistency, completeness, and scientific validity across extracted models
Employ generative AI to propose new model structures, dynamically guided by disease-specific needs and prior evidence
Apply the developed pipeline to critical case studies (e.g., RSV vaccine modeling) and rigorously compare AI-generated models with existing approaches
Develop excellent working relationships within partner across our Research Laboratories; ensure effective cross-functional collaboration across teams
Collaborate externally and solicit input from appropriate stakeholders and adopt latest techniques from relevant published literature
Disseminate key research findings/methodology via scientific presentations at congresses and publications in scientific journals.

Requirements

What you’ll need

Candidates should currently hold a PhD OR will receive a PhD by start of employment in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, or a closely-related quantitative field.
Previous experience with large language models (LLMs), natural language processing (NLP), or machine learning
Strong programming skills in Python and/or C++, with experience in model fitting, simulation, and data extraction workflows
Previous experience working on interdisciplinary research projects and/or working within interdisciplinary teams
Ability to gather, organize, and synthesize complex information in order to draw conclusions and make recommendations
Strong creative problem solving skills
Strong interpersonal, networking, presentation, and communication skills
Ability to communicate effectively in English in both verbal and written formats.

Benefits

Comp & perks

bonus eligibility
health care and other insurance benefits (for employee and family)
retirement benefits
paid holidays
vacation
sick days

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

AI-assisted systematic review techniqueslarge language models (LLMs)natural language processing (NLP)machine learningPythonC++model fittingsimulationdata extraction workflows

Soft Skills

creative problem solvinginterpersonal skillsnetworkingpresentation skillscommunication skillscross-functional collaborationability to synthesize complex information

Certifications

PhD in Computer SciencePhD in MathematicsPhD in Statistics